was Rafael Moshe Kamhi who led one of the rebel groups. It was he who took part in the early activities of the movement under the nickname Skanderbeg (Skender-beg). He headed a unit in Debar during the uprising of 1903. Mentes Kolomonos, Santo Aroesti, the Muson brothers and Avram Nisan are other known participants in the uprising who collected weapons and provided rebels with money., Jews from modern-day North Macedonia got their citizen rights after the region became a part of Kingdom of Serbia. Distribution Prior to World War II, the Jewish community of Vardar Macedonia (the area roughly corresponding to the borders of the present-day republic) was centered on Bitola (approximately 8,000 Jews), Skopje (approximately 3,000 Jews) and Štip (approximately 500 Jews). The Jewish communities during World War I in smaller areas, like Dojran and Strumica, that were close to the front line, were significantly affected by the fighting and fled the area. The partition of the region also adversely impacted the Jews in the smaller centers since it deprived them of free flow for most of their merchant activities to the largest Jewish trading center in the Balkans, Thessaloniki. World War II and the Holocaust In March 1941, Bulgaria became an ally of the Axis Powers and in April 1941 the Bulgarian army entered Vardar Macedonia, in an effort to recover the region, which it saw as a natural part of its own national homeland. Although Bulgaria had effectively occupied the region, German authorities, who were in charge, recognised only the Bulgarian military administration and not the civil one. The Bulgarian occupational zone included neither Thessaloniki, with its over 55,000 Jews, nor the westernmost part of Vardar Macedonia, including the towns of Debar, Struga, and Tetovo, which were part of Italian-occupied Albania. On October 4, 1941, the Bulgarian authorities enacted a law prohibiting Jews from engaging in any form of commerce, and forcing them to sell their businesses to non-Jews. However, such laws were not a novelty for the region since the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had had its own anti-Semitic law enacted as early as 1939. The Bulgarians then ghettoized the Jews of Bitola, forcing them to move from the Jewish areas of the town, which were relatively affluent, to poorer areas of the town. Bulgarian authorities had already adopted an antisemitic law called "Law for Protection of the Nation" in January 1941. According to the U.S. Holocaust